Wednesday, February 24, 2010

NC Filing Update

Here are some of the news pieces from the last three days of filing:

-Incumbents G.K. Butterfield, Walter Jones, and Virginia Foxx each drew primary challenges in the forms of Chad Larkins, Robert Cavanaugh, and Keith Gardner. Howard Coble now has 3 with the entrances of Billy Yow and Cathy Brewer Hinson and Patrick McHenry has 2 now that Scott Keadle has filed. Larry Kissell has one as well, making it 6 out of 13 incumbents facing an election in May for renomination. I don't think any of them are at serious risk of losing but it's interesting there are so many.

-There's been little in the way of developments on the Senate side. The biggest news is probably Marc Basnight drawing a challenger in Hood Richardson, but Richardson ran in 2006 and didn't even win the primary. I'm sure there's no seat the GOP would rather win than this one, and I'm pretty equally sure they have no chance so it would be nice if they dropped a lot of money here and diverted it from districts where it might make a bigger impact.

-On the House side the biggest news has been the retirement of Russell Tucker, whose seat should be competitive in an open seat situation. His timing was good for Democrats though, as Republicans didn't have a candidate yet and may have trouble rounding a good one up on such short notice. Tucker's retirement is also a reminder that House Democrats have done a pretty good job of warding off departures in competitive districts- the only one before him was Ray Warren.

Republicans did continue their trend of improving on their 2008 candidate recruitment. Sam Edwards will challenge Ray Rapp, who was unopposed last time in his marginally Democratic district. As I've said repeatedly I don't know how good any of these Republican challengers are, and most of the Democrats they're challenging have a very good electoral track record, but having a body is an important first step to an upset.

Cullie Tarleton, who won narrowly in both 2006 and 2008, finally got a challenger in Jonathan Jordan. That will probably continue to be one of the GOP's top pick up opportunities. Finally, another five incumbents have drawn primary challengers- Earl Jones, Nick Mackey, and Elmer Floyd on the Democratic side and Frank Iler and Pat McElraft for the Republicans.